There are very few shopping malls or large-chain book stores in the state of Maine. I prefer it this way—for the forests where I yearn to wander to remain sprawling, and the shops less-plentiful. I tend to do my acquiring locally where the parking is limited and the offerings distilled. The one exception being LL Bean’s super-sized, 24-hr campus where I once purchased a new pump for an inflatable air-mattress at midnight—the starry sky filled with moonlight and autumn’s chill, my pregnant belly loath to sleep on a deflating, rectangular balloon in our new and yet-to-be-furnished home.

Despite my preference for the quaint, I sometimes find myself in South Portland in a more heavily-populated, shopping nucleus with a few minutes to spare. Jonah, Adrian and I venture into the massive bookstore across from Macy’s with its rows of bargain books, colorful display of calendars and the latest works to top the New York Times Best Seller list.

My boys beeline for the children’s section of the discount isle where the books are immense and overflowing with colorful photos and plentiful information. They pounce on the materials about wild animals or superheroes and sprawl out on the tightly-woven, carpeted floor as if they are lounging on the wool rug at home between their two twin beds.

I hang around for a moment assessing their safety—wondering whether their bodies draped across the aisle will bother anyone—and then wander to a nearby magazine display filled with glossy art & design and travel covers. I take in the exquisite images—minimalist living rooms with flourishing, lavender orchids, photo ops of celebrities at art openings and fashion week, rugged, backpacking getaways to faraway places—take only what you’ll need.

I imagine purchasing a few, tearing out the most appealing photos and creating a collage of what I hope is yet to come—acknowledging the paradoxical desire I possess for both a deepening-connection with my fellow humans and a simultaneous extraction from the relentless connectivity of modern life.

Recently Jonah was exploring the webpage Google Earth. We were having a discussion about the Dalai Lama and we opened the program because I wanted to show him where Tibet was located on a map. He took the little, yellow-person icon from the right corner of the screen and dropped it into the mountainous region to the northeast of India. When the frame opened-up to a satellite view we saw the image of two backpacks lying on a mountain peak—the shadows of two hikers hovering over the packs as captured by a lens in space.

It illustrated so succinctly a symbolic form for the places and manner in which I would still like to go. It captured the dream of unplugged connection.

Walking away from the magazine isle empty-handed and toward a display table, I thought about the deceptive-promise of a polished life. I thought about how so-much of what I value and what has made life meaningful to me could be interpreted as too-ordinary—too-messy, or even too-traumatic—to be depicted as something to aspire to as a benchmark on the pathway to greater contentment.

I also contemplated what it means to weigh the desire-for-more against a backward-trust-fall-into-the-moment—brothers lying on the floor-of-a-store turning pages on a September afternoon between appointments tipping the scales heavily.

I like to believe that we have the opportunity in life to grow through joyful expressions and experiences—that we might remember our divinity without having to pass through a doorway of pain. And yet, some of the most challenging experiences of my life have propelled me infinitely farther into my capacity for compassion than any of the chapters graced with ease.

It is unusual for me to buy three books for myself at once, especially when they each explore—from diverse perspectives—the topic of personal-evolution, although I am almost always reading something in this genre.

I was sucked-in by the circular sticker on the front cover promising that if I bought two, I would receive a third book for free—a bibliophile’s extra donut in the baker’s dozen.

Deciding to purchase the one with the sticker was an obvious choice. I had read one of Brené Brown’s other works and was a believer in her stepping-into-the-arena message.

Her research and the book I had read were inspired by Theodore Roosevelt’s thoughts on celebrating the brave few who expose themselves to vulnerability through expressions of their most daring, truest works—regardless of outcome—while unmasking the critics who cast judgement from the sidelines.

Reading Daring Greatlyhelped me to begin telling the truth of my experiences and showed me how-to-know who could be entrusted with those personal discoveries. This book invited me to live and create at a level that was measured by my own criteria and not by the model of the masses.

I had never connected with the fact that Brené Brown was from Texas—a place for which I have complex feelings—and I-for-certain had no-idea I would be in the Lone Star State anytime soon and specifically in her city, Houston.

The second book I chose was sitting in clearly the wrong spot in front of Eckhart Tolle’s book, A New Earth—one of the most transformative reads of my life. Someone had obviously picked the book up, decided against it and put it back incorrectly on the wrong shelf.

I followed-suit, picking it up and placing it back down again several times—in hesitation— wondering why Eckhart Tolle hadn’t written anything new, anyway.

One of his brilliant books would have been an easier selection.

I was both weary of the subject matter—wanting so much to sink-into this lifetime—and somehow feeling like the book wouldn’t let me leave without its presence in my hand. I had read another title more than fifteen years ago by the same author—a psychiatrist who utilizes past-life-regression to assist people in overcoming obstacles in their lives. He was a Columbia University and Yale Medical School graduate who had risked his credibility in order to explore an esoteric path that lead to his blossoming life and the healing of many people.

Some explain away the idea of experiences from past-lifetimes impacting our current lives as illusions created by the subconscious mind. Even so, I found this author’s first book compelling—especially relating to the feeling of having a deeper knowledge of some people beyond our current, shared life-experiences.

I remember once meeting someone for the first time and the thought immediately coming to my mind—Oh, there you are.

I succumbed and added the book to my pile.

The third choice was a less-complicated selection—recommended by a woman whom I admire and who recently lost her dearest friend to cancer. She has been utilizing the wisdom of the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu in their Book of Joyto wade through her grief.

I stumbled upon a talk given by the Dalai Lama in Central Park in New York City in the summer of 1999. Although I was on the very outside of the many rows encasing him, his simple message of compassion and impermanence—his gentle presence and wisdom—has stayed with me.

I was eager to learn from him again.

At the check-out there was a plentiful display of candy and tchotchkes and the news that my particular book choices did not qualify for the sale mentioned on the sticker.

I felt like I was playing a game of whac-a-mole with Jonah and Adrian—keeping their hands away from the many tempting treats and toys as I chatted with the cashier about the confusion over the sale.

I shrugged off the full-price status of my purchase and gathered my books along with a stack I had bought for the boys.

The expansive parking lot and the inside of my car radiated heat as we climbed back in—Jonah and Adrian finding a good spot for their books in the seat between them while I tucked mine on the floor beside me.

Labor Day Weekend and one-final, end-of-summer getaway were on the horizon.

All was well.

** Due to the lengthy nature of this story and the desire to do justice to the nuances, I’ve decided to break it up into a few installments. I hope you will enjoy my journey through these three books and the way they spoke-to and supported me during a difficult time caring for my mother who is struggling with a sudden illness. Thank you for any good thoughts of healing you might send her way.

The morning is bright and crisp. The long, doubled rope of the swing out back vibrates with the wind—each strand of line separating and then coming back to the other again and again. Occasionally a powerful gust of wind will come and sweep the entire swing upward and then back again, like a swaying pocket watch used in hypnosis.

The bay is hidden in a field of white. A large shadow of the giant pine drapes over the sparkly surface, evidence of the sun having recently risen. There is only one uncovered stream of water in the distance—rolled out like a navy blue carpet across the landscape of white.

In the hallway there are a string of deflated balloons—yellow and orange and green—still tied together with golden, curling ribbon. In the bathroom, the wide sink surface is covered in diamond shaped cardboard—Adrian’s current ambition to use toilet paper rolls that he has wet, uncurled and dried for collection and creation.

His impulse to repurpose household materials for art brings a smile to my face. My heart expands in recognition of the ways we rub-off on our children. Some of them are good.

I don’t know what I was thinking booking a flight that departed at dawn. Waiting to pack until just before bed, I noticed a slight pulsing pain in my head, the turning of my stomach. I set my alarm for three hours before we would be taking off and climbed into bed with ample time to rest.

Closing my eyes, I found myself on a carnival ride—the Gravitron in my mind spinning me around and around as if I were in my 20’s again having had too much to drink.

My options seemed bleak. I imagined having to cancel my trip—disappointing a grieving friend. I thought about the risks of bringing illness out into the world and to those who I love.

I wondered whether the maladies flooding our community had taken root in me—our bodies and minds so absorbent of the experiences of others—also, germ theory.

The hours passed, I didn’t sleep.

Instead I searched around myself for a place that was well—for an energy I recognize, even in my most debilitating moments when it shows up as only a tiny spec of hope.

I both greeted the discomfort entirely—swinging around on the tilt-o-whirl inside of me—and simultaneously expanded the stream of what I can only describe as perfect wellness, allowing it to flood the rest of my body with its vigor.

Beneath my doubts, a mantra pulsed through me, “I am well.”

A new reality was explaining itself to the cells of me. One by one they were jumping on board in deference to the Universal flow that is always at our service.

I have needed to be sick at times. I have collapsed feverish into rest like a corpse—freeing myself from the demands of doing and holding and keeping pace with the rapid swirl of the world. I have allowed the opportunity of illness to be revealing in its potent delivery of directives.

I have used medicine to help me heal—to ward of germs or promote wellness when I haven’t had the impulse or energy to will a change in the state of my body.

Even as I invited a shift in my being, I accepted the possibility that my early morning path would not look the way I hoped it would.

I straddle the worlds of personal, creative power and the mystery of the will of the Gods and biology—one leg each on either side of a seesaw catapulting through space and time.

I finally collapsed into a nourishing rest for about an hour before I needed to get up.

When my alarm sounded, my head was clear. I felt steady and strangely rested. I checked in with myself again and again as I showered and got dressed and rolled my weekend travel bag down the hallway in the dark, my two children draped with blankets in the winter’s night.

I was fully well.

Traveling so early, I found myself on the second leg of my journey in a row of seats by myself. I felt grateful for the extra space. It reminded me of traveling alone when I was very young and before the time when flights are mostly oversold and packed tightly with little breathing room between passengers.

The temperature in the airplane was frigid. The flight-attendant was apologizing and handing out blankets. I layered up all of the clothing I had with me including my colorful, fingerless gloves.

I have been re-reading the books that have most influenced my life and way of being in the world. It is interesting revisiting them as a mother now and noticing the ways in which they sit with me differently.

One of the gifts of having children is the wider lens it offers us unto ourselves. I have found in witnessing my boys’ impulses and needs, their tendencies and humanity I have been able to unearth further the places in myself that have been shut-down and ignored.

In nurturing them I have come to value more my own right to well-being. I have come to forgive more readily my mistakes—like I would theirs.

We all arrive here with all that we need. Remembering who we are—our original essence—and accepting the exquisite lightness of that being is the task at hand.

Huddled in my seat—still fully well—I read and read and then I would occasionally place my head back on the seat, removing the elastic holding my hair in a knot so that I could be more comfortable, closing my eyes and drifting off into a peaceful rest.

Yesterday afternoon it snowed unceasingly for many hours. Jonah desperately wanted to have a family snowball fight. I was the only taker. We decided to go for a walk first knowing the battle would leave us wet and wanting to go back inside.

The snow was still coming down as we walked along our hushed and deserted road blanketed in white. I convinced him to walk all the way to the house with the yellow Hummer in the driveway—its color popping out like a canary on a birch branch.

Nearing our house again, Jonah stopped in the middle of the road and tipped his head back, closing his eyes. I took him in as his soft, pink cheeks greeted the wet snowflakes for a long while.

When he raised his head up, he told me how good it felt to do that. I said I would like to try. He looked on while I tipped my head back, closing my eyes and allowing the cold dampness to dot my face. I imagined the cool flakes thinning my makeup.

I noticed the refueling of my body engaged in the natural world.

When we got to the driveway, I gathered up the fluffy snow—too soft for a real snowball—and tossed it at Jonah. He took the bait and began running off toward his snow fort for shelter where he could ambush me in safe cover.

The snow we threw at each other separated like powder in the air again and again and we laughed breathlessly finally deciding that tomorrow would be a better day for real snowballs.

We decided to go down to the dock where a virtual tundra surrounded the shoreline. Jonah ventured out onto the boulder like structures of ice wanting to dip his gloves into the icy, watery mix at their base and create formations with this enticing mixture.

I kneeled down into the snow on the dock observing him, trying to notice and latch onto any warmth in my body so that I could stay out a few minutes longer.

Upon our descent the airplane tilted the left wing sharply earthward—our bodies shifting off balance in our narrow seats. Across the aisle we caught a glimpse of the Maine landscape, the fields and forests splashed in white and russet brown. The stark-white sheets of snow had melted or been washed away, now only intermittently splattering the trees and rooftops and the rocky coastline like a Jackson Pollock painting.

Peering out the far window, I tucked my book partially under my leg so as not to forget it. Its orange cover was worn, the pages yellowing with many of the corners bent from years of re-reading. The topic—inner spaciousness—breathed through me emphatically as we as we surged to the ground.

Driving home—despite the single-digit temperature and our thin clothing—Jonah said it felt like fall and then he shouted-out, suddenly remembering his snow-fort in the front yard and fearing its demise. Once I realized his howling was not from injury, I assured him that it would take a long while for the snow in our yard to melt entirely—which turned out to be true, in the front at least.

In the back, a damp and grassy ground had become visible beneath the new, circular swing and all around it. It feels more like spring than fall to me with the sudden accessibility of tree roots and the coffee-colored puddles.

Just a few weeks ago, I tried the swing out myself, with a vigorous push from the boys and then a leap off into the snowy padding below.

I felt so alive in the clutches of the cold, rocketing toward the pink-streaked sky at dusk.

The fire pit is still covered in an icy mix. I’m tempted to clear it out and build a fire with the dry wood stacked in the garage. It takes time to feel grounded again. Building a fire allows a weight in me to be regained, stirring the embers steadies the stirrings within me. The heat melts away the high-vibration cells in motion.

By tomorrow, the ground will be covered again. All evidence of the raw verdancy witnessed today will be blanketed over with the return of winter’s firm habitation in these parts—a clean palette dropped down from the heavens like a curtain unfurled in a midnight meeting with the new moon.

In a café this morning, I looked around for where the light might be streaming in and ended up in a cozy spot in the back. I thought about all of the ways light shows up in various scenes of living—in my home, in the places I go—how it feels heating my hair, my skin, the way it can shine on a face or create shadows that only draws a greater—more powerful—emphasis on its presence.

Looking for the light made long days with babies and small children less lonely and forged a fruitful pathway to deeper seeing. Discovering the light again and again has had a way of establishing me into the present moment and vindicating my right to be there at my own slow—even glacial—pace.

While I was reading the café seemed to fill up and overflow with ebullient conversation. The space was mostly filled with university students and some of their parents. I gazed across the room and my eyes were drawn to a man who appeared to be a father with his son. For some reason—I don’t know why—the father captivated my attention.

I felt a spaciousness growing in me as I took him in, my thoughts falling away.

He was looking at his son as he ate—his eyes just slightly lit up. I noticed his attributes. I was far enough away that he had no idea I was looking so intently at him.

Finally, I looked away and my attention was drawn more near to a table of women and girls. One girl talked in a lively way. I couldn’t hear what she was saying. Her hair was long, her face round and youthful. Everyone was listening.

I felt myself landing more deeply into my body as I sat observing all of the people in the room, none of them noticing me. I looked down at my book and read on.

In one of the airports there was a courtyard in which a pianist played. We settled into a couple of the rocking chairs beneath a row of trees. I asked Jonah if he thought the trees were real. We looked down and saw that they were planted right into a square space that had been carved out of the concrete and filled with real soil.

We agreed the trees were alive and envisioned a vehicle coming around watering each of them. It was hard to imagine that so many would be watered by hand.

As I sat rocking—as if on a front porch—people of every, single variety, in every shape and pigmentation, flooded by in a colorful stream of hearts beating, blood traveling, cells dividing.

It is compelling to look on and observe the way the brow reflects thought—denser thinking and worries tugging it inward, lighter contemplation or expanding awareness drawing it outward. I can feel it in myself.

I could almost hear some of their thoughts shouting out—like fireworks set-off from their skin. Others emanated a peaceful equanimity—a waterfall of goodwill pouring off in a gentle flow.

They talked and talked and talked, then waited for their turn to talk again. Others had learned to listen—to really listen to hear and to understand. I could see it in their eyes.

I contemplated the significance of each person in all of their consciousness and unconsciousness, in all of the intricacies of their very own, unique lives. Not one of them deserved less than the others.

I am so taken with humanity and the many ways that people go about living. We are here to learn from each other. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Tonight Jonah and Adrian—unusually—went to bed at the same time. I was lying with Adrian in his bed rubbing his back when Jonah said he heard something. I told him it was the music downstairs.

He got up and cracked the door open to listen. I heard more loudly the gentle beat of the kirtan.

He came over to Adrian’s bed and tried to squeeze in with us.

“I wish all three of us could fit.”

I rubbed his leg that had made it onto the edge of the mattress reassuringly and then he went back to his bed.

Adrian said that he was having a scary thought.

I expressed that he was safe and offered to help him find his way out of the thought.

I invited him to follow my breath with me.

My hand was on his back so I could feel his breathing pattern become elongated as I began to become more conscious in my own breath.

After a couple of moments I suggested that he take a pause at the top of his breath and then again on the exhale. I demonstrated with my own breathing.

Some time passed.

I noticed with my hand that his breathing had become very slow, almost imperceptible.